Published 6:30 am, Saturday, November 22, 2008

Chertoff sent Perry a four-page letter defending what he termed as aggressive and expanded efforts by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to remove illegal immigrants, while complaining of a lack of cooperation from local law enforcement who jailed them for criminal offenses.

"ICE, however, cannot remove and deport criminal aliens in State or local jails that it does not know about,' " Chertoff wrote. "State and local officials have to be willing to share that information in a timely fashion in order for such removal to take place."

Perry blasted DHS after a three-part Houston Chronicle series published last week indicated only one of four illegal immigrants booked into the Harris County Jail were processed by ICE for removal, allowing a number of immigrants to be released who later committed serious crimes.

The governor characterized the ICE removal operation as a "de facto catch and release program," and asked that ICE provide all Texas law enforcement agencies with access to an immigration database that contains fingerprints of immigrants with criminal records.

"I am outraged to learn that thousands of criminal aliens in our Texas jails who should have been detained, removed and deported ... were instead released back onto our streets after they completed their jail sentence," Perry wrote in a Nov. 18 letter to Chertoff.

Friday's letter from Chertoff was a continuation of a clash between the two officials, and followed Perry's ire on Thursday when DHS officials confirmed Texas would get a lower level of reimbursement for debris removal than Louisiana received after Hurricane Katrina.

In his letter, Chertoff said newspaper reports "fail to state that Harris County did not share with ICE existing lists it maintains of detainees who reported they were foreign born." Chertoff said the agency only received the list from Harris County on Nov. 18, and is vetting the database to determine the immigration status of each detainee.

Spurred by officer's death

Harris County Sheriff's Office Capt.
John Martin
said the department first began asking non-citizens booked into the jail about their legal presence on Sept. 29, 2006. The new policy was implemented after the murder of Houston police officer
Rodney Johnson
earlier that month by an illegal immigrant who was previously convicted of a crime, was deported, and returned to Houston.

Martin confirmed ICE was not given a list of all those who had acknowledged they were here illegally, but added that ICE agents stationed in the jail were notified immediately of the inmate's immigration status as the jailers learned of it.

"That information was provided to ICE as we obtained it, but we had not provided all of that information in one continuous list," Martin said. "The information that is in the list that Secretary Chertoff was referring to was provided on a daily basis, as it was obtained."

Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said Perry took issue with sections of Chertoff's letter, including his claim some Texas law officials, whom he did not identify, are not receptive to installing links to ICE fingerprint database in other Texas counties.

"As you know, such cooperation has not always been forthcoming in some parts of Texas," Chertoff wrote.

In October, Harris County was the first jail to partner with ICE in its Secure Communities Program, a nationwide system that allows local officials access to FBI and ICE fingerprint and biometric criminal databases.

"Honestly, we don't know, or are aware of, any law enforcement entity in Texas that would not want to have more information at their fingertips to protect their community," Cesinger said.

And, Perry has long pressed DHS for that type of access to criminal databases so officers can "connect the dots," she said.

"The governor has been pushing for this information-sharing from DHS for over two years now," Cesinger said.

"If someone is brought into a jail, and that law enforcement entity has access to the federal database with information whether that person is a criminal alien, then the referral to the appropriate federal authority can happen immediately. Without that information, law enforcement doesn't have the tools they need, and should have, to protect their communities."

Immigration detainers

Chertoff noted that Congress provided $200 million this year for the fingerprint database sharing program, and supplied an additional $150 million in the next two federal fiscal years.

"ICE's multi-layered approach to the criminal alien problem is already producing results both in Texas and nationwide," Chertoff told Perry.

In Houston, ICE detention and removal agents filed more than 7,206 immigration detainers against illegal immigrants booked into the Harris County jail from Dec. 29, 2007 to Nov. 10, Chertoff wrote. ICE officials file immigration detainers to hold jailed immigrants so they can be deported or prosecuted on immigration charges after local charges are resolved.

Chertoff's letter also outlined recent steps ICE and Harris County have taken to remove illegal immigrants with criminal records, including the deployment of 10 ICE agents to the jail and the training of county jailers to process ICE removal paperwork.

"To correct the problem at its source, Harris County and the City of Houston have recently agreed to work with ICE on a series of actions that were not fully acknowledged in the press reports," Chertoff wrote.

Martin said the sheriff's office and ICE not only have "a long history of working very well together" but have improved methods to screen illegal immigrants booked into jail.

"Collectively, we have gotten much better in recent years in identifying illegal aliens being booked into the Harris County Jail, as evidenced by the significant increase in the number of detainers (immigration) being placed on inmates," Martin said. "We have every reason to expect that good working relationship will continue for the foreseeable future."

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